Better than the original ...

... sometimes an imitation is better than the original.

For example I have been mining the iTunes song library for interesting covers recently. I think it takes some skill to put your own personal spin on an accepted standard.

Here is just a small sampling of some the gems that I found:

1) "Everybody Hurts" - This was originally done by REM, but I really enjoy the Dashboard Confessional version, especially towards the end of the song.

2) "Jolene" - the White Stripes rendition is very stripped down and haunting and raw. I don't think Dolly Parton had this in mind when she penned this song for her bleating-sheep style of singing.

3) "Somewhere over the Rainbow" - it takes a 500-pound Hawaiian man to sing this song correctly. Long live Iz. Judy Garland, who?

4) "MMM - bop" - continuing on the Hawaiian sound, this Hanson song was best done by a group of guys from Hawaii who do a lounge act.

5) "Come Sail Away" - this will probably out me as a geek, but I found a college Acapella group that does an incredible version of the song. Search for Boca Acapella on iTunes and the title the song to find it. The end will blow you away.

peace.

goobledy-dook ... or learning Dragopn Naturally Speaking ...

So, learning how to speak, although her again . Backspace backspace

medications try that again: So of learning how to speak all over again.

Let's try that again: So, learning how to speak all over again.
This is my first effort with a voice recordation program. The word recordation should have been recognition, which is frustrating and also sobering. I'm learning that the computer takes a while to learn but I'm also learning that I don't speak very clearly.

Hopefully in the future at this program. Will adapt and now be able to speech without having to type.
That last sentence should have read:
Hopefully in the future, this program will adapt and I will be able to speak without having to type. Unfortunately, I sound like a robot and an idiot to the people in the office next to me.

I'm not a fast typist but I learned some bad habits along the way and they are very hard to unlearn. So, maybe this was recognition program will help me get my thoughts down.

Four rule spew out something unintelligible.

Peace.

Ah, caffeine ...

... is wonderful.


My version is usally carbonated, cola-colored and flavored with aspratame. I know aspartame is evil and I'll end up with a tumor in my head someday, but what's an insulin-impaired dude to do?


I only left my desk for a moment and my office mate, whom I affectionately call "bones" helped himself to my caffeine:

I don't mind him having a little (he can't take much in - no stomach), but he just wouldn't shut up for the next 2 hours! He kept on knocking stuff of my desk and singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" over and over.

He finally passed out on some of my bonsais:

Uncool, bones ... uncool.

A day in my life ...

... with type 1 diabetes.

(I know - *groan* - another diabetes post - boring!)

It's World Diabetes Day, so I thought I'd blog about my dealing with diabetes in my own warped way.

1) Calling the kettle black - It's known in my clinic that I have type 1 DM and that I wear an insulin pump. However, for a bunch of medical professionals (nurses, mostly) their undestanding of the disease is lacking. This morning, someone brought in a cake for someone else's birthday. My sugar was about 120, so I took a small piece and was setting my bolus, when I heard, " Hey, you have diabetes, you shouldn't eat that."

I looked up to see the 300 pound, 5 foot tall rooming nurse from the other care unit shoveling a piece of cake the size of my head into her piehole. As she's admonishing me for my sliver of carbs, the crumbs are falling out of her mouth and a visible sweat is starting to bead on her forehead. I just stared at her as she joked about doctors not being the healthiest eaters, etc.

I was going to challenge her to a foot race around the clinic at lunch, but I think her heart would actually explode if she tried to exert herself - so I held my tongue and offered to cut her another piece of cake.

I know I'm mean and cruel, but maybe this will change your mind - last week, I overheard her telling another nurse that she's trying to pack on another 20 to 30 pounds (exacbating her asthma, hypertension and arthritis), so that her insurance will cover her bariatric surgery completely as a medical necessity and not charge her for an elective procedure!


2) You don't look that sick - The little old lady (who take 10 medications a day for her heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease and breast cancer) is looking at me pitifully after I tell her I'm checking my blood sugar because I have diabetes. She shakes her head, mumbles "that's too bad" and shuffles off toward the pharmacy with her walker (complete with cut tennis balls on the foot pads) stopping to occasionally untangle her portable oxygen hose. Really?


3) I could never have that thing hooked up to me - Every now and then my insulin pump falls off my belt loop and dangles from my side. Or my pumps beeps or vibrates as my blood sugar goes too high or too low. Often people think it's my beeper, but as that technology is getting assimilated by cell phones these days, more and more people ask me what that "thing" is with the tubing. I tell them it's an insulin pump - and the reaction I get is either a) blank stare (no idea what I'm talking about) b) big grin (dude ... you're like a cyborg) or c) revulsion.

I'm always amazed by reaction "c". It's not okay to make fun of the retarded kid or the woman in a wheelchair(I'm NOT saying that's ok, by the way), but it seems to be "okay" to verbalize the disgust of "having to wear that thing". I used to glibly joke that this thing is keeping me alive (in order to make the jerk feel bad), but now I smile and remark, "well, I hope you never have to". Then, in my mind, I put a jinx on them that they pee their pants when they walk away but that never happens - sigh.


So while all the above has not happened to me today in particular, they occur frequently enough that it feels like it happens every day.

I used to get pissed off, but now that I'm doing pretty good with the condition 14 years later, I find solace in a excellent A1c, the fact that I'm healthier than 96% of the people I know and that my family loves me for who I am - occasional crankiness to the insensitive people in the world and all.

Happy WDD!

Happy D Blog day! Hope I only have to wish it to myself ...

I don't blog about my diabetes that much because as an Internal Medicine physician, I see the stark reality of diabetic complications everyday at work. I'd rather focus on, what are to me, the more interesting things that happen in my life in my blogs.


Don't get me wrong - I don't ignore my diabetes or hide it from anyone - I wear an insulin pump and a CGSM and I will check a fingerstick anywhere (restaurants, movie theatres, church, bar) at any time. My A1c is inthe 5.3 to 6.0 range consistently through a lot of hard work on my part.


But I don't go out of my way to tell people. I'll answer truthfully if they ask - I wear my pump as a tool, not as a badge of honor. I'm one of those people who classify themselves as "having diabetes" not as someone who is a "diabetic".


I not knocking anyone who labels themself in either way, but we all have our coping skills and I'm comfortable with mine. Enough on that.



Anyway, I'm dealing with my diabetes (and all the fun it brings) and I accept the that responsibility even when I fall off the exercise wagon or knowingly scarf down an extra piece of pizza at a luchtime meeting that will send my blood sugar northwards of 250 for the rest of the afternoon. I am also dealing with the fact that some very minor complications are creeping into my life despite a "normal" A1C.

I'm a big boy - I was diagnosed 14 years ago when I was 25 and in my third year of medical school. I (hopefully) have the wisdom and wit to deal with what I have to do each day in order to live a long and healthy life.


But my son isn't a big boy. He's 20 months old and I'm deathly afraid that he'll develop diabetes someday.

Thanks to a crappy mutation in my genes, he has a 5 to 8% chance of getting type 1 diabetes. While he may have inherited my brown eyes and infectious laugh, he may have inherited my propensity for auto-immune diseases. That ... truly ... sucks.

Everytime he has a fever or gets a sniffle, I worry, in the back of my mind, that six months later he'll start demonstrating the signs and symptoms that I was too blind to see when I was diagnosed - the thirst, the urination, the fatigue, the weight loss.

I think I'm able to get a hold of my diabetes because I got it relatively later in life than most folks. I think it would be hell to have to grow up with diabetes - many people do, but I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy let alone my 20 month old toddler. He shouldn't have to worry about shots and finger sticks - he still has to learn how to ride a bike and spell his name and watch "Pingu" on Sprout.

So, every milestone he celebrates, my mind rejoices that he's diabetes-free. However, the pessismist in that nagging diabetic portion of my brain asks, "but for how long?".

My wife and I have looked into the blood testing (islet antibodies, et al) that can be performed to see if my son is at increased risk for developing type 1, but wow ... talk about implications! If it's negative, then whew ... but what if it's positive? There's nothing to be actively done at his point - maybe some "gene therapy" if this was 20-30 years in the future.

I guess it comes back to coping mechanisms. Would you want to know if it was your health on the line? Some people want to know, while others are more comfortable without knowing. As a parent of a child that is still totally dependent, I'm going to remain in the dark for now. Life is short enough and I don't want to waste it worrying about something that may or may not happen. For now, life will be what it should be for a 20 month old - easy and care free. We often unknowingly load a lot of "baggage" on our kids as they grow- he doesn't need this.


For now, Peter is strong and funny and smart. He plays hard and laughs easily. He has a wicked sense of humor and curiosity. I hope all he knows about diabetes as he gets older is that his "old man" has it and is doing ok.


========================================

So, happy D Blog day! Enjoy the other blogs and I hope I posted this right. I don't think it matters too much, because I think only my niece reads my blog - and then, only when she's bored. Hi Alissa! see you at Thanksgiving.

Peace.

We're really a republic ...

... so I hate it when people say that the USA is a democratic country.

In a true democracy, the voters vote on everything. Every law, every official, etc.

In a republic, the voters elect people who then vote on the major issues. Sure, alot of the local and state elections are democratic, but it stops there.

The biggest "republic" act is the electoral college process every year. Sure, you pull your lever for Obama or push your button for McCain, but when it comes down to it, some "electorate" makes the official decision for you and possibly millions more in your state. Most states also go by the "all or none" rule, where as if the majority of the state's electoral votes goes one way, then all the electoral votes from that state go to the majority candidate.

Seems a little fishy to me.

The electoral college idea came from a time when the "common people" weren't considered knowledgable enough to be trusted in choosing the nation's leader. If you ask me, I think it's an antiquated process and skews the perception of the support for the candidate.

This is seen every election where the popular vote is nowhere near the electoral college vote margins. And, in the rare occasion, the "popular" president doesn't win because he has a slightly less number of electoral votes!

Amazing.

So ... I don't want this to sound anti-American or anti-voting, but it's just something to think about.

As for me, I'm hitting the polls at the local parochial school (separation of church and state? that's a topic for another day) after work, then I'm gonna sit back, have a beer and watch the republic unfold on TV.

Peace! Vote! twice, even! ;)